page_title: Bogotazo
section_title: Suspect
hierarchical_section_title: Bogotazo / Murder of Gaitán / Suspect
caption_attribution_description: The primate cathedral of Bogotá. Bogotá, Colombia.
context_page_description: El Bogotazo refers to the massive riots that followed the assassination in Bogotá, Colombia of Liberal leader and presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on 9 April 1948 during the government of President Mariano Ospina Pérez. The 10-hour riot left much of downtown Bogotá destroyed. The aftershock of Gaitan's murder continued extending through the countryside and escalated a period of violence which had begun eighteen years before, in 1930, and was triggered by the fall of the conservative party from government and the rise of the liberals. The 1946 presidential elections brought the downfall of the liberals allowing conservative Mariano Ospina Pérez to win the presidency. The struggle for power between both again triggered a period in the history of Colombia known as La Violencia that lasted until approximately 1958, from which the civil conflict that continues to this day grew.
context_section_description: The man suspected of killing Gaitán ran away heading south and pursued by an angry crowd. A policeman Carlos Alberto Jiménez Díaz tried to control the situation. According to police reports, the man surrendered to Jiménez calling:
  "No me mates, mi cabo" (Don't kill me, my corporal)
  In an attempt to avoid the mob, Jiménez locked himself and his prisoner in the nearby Granada drugstore. Some witnesses subsequently interviewed by local newspapers (El Tiempo and El Espectador, issues from April to May, same year) claimed that the man who was taken into the drugstore was not the same one who was captured, and that in the confusion Officer Jiménez was mistaken because the other man was also wearing a gray hat. According to the drugstore owner, when he asked the prisoner why he had killed Gaitán, he replied:
  "¡Ay Señor, cosas poderosas! ¡Ay, Virgen del Carmen, sálvame!" (Oh mighty lord! Oh powerful things! Our Lady of Carmen, save me!)
  After that, the doors were charged and the man was taken by the mob. His naked corpse was found later, in the Bolívar Square, outside the Presidential Palace. His face was crushed with a brick, and his body was mutilated.  A bystander, Gabriel Restrepo, collected the remains of his clothes and found some personal documents, which identified him as 26-year-old Juan Roa Sierra.
  There have been a number of theories concerning Gaitán's murder, some claiming that the assassination was planned and undertaken by other persons in addition to Juan Roa Sierra; or that the latter was not the real killer. Roa Sierra was born into a poor family. There was a history of mental illness amongst Roa Sierra's brothers, and he may himself have been unstable. He was seen often in Gaitán's office asking for a job, since he was unemployed, but Gaitán had never received him. Some people who knew Roa Sierra stated that he never learned to shoot a gun, although Gaitán's assassin had fired accurate shots. It has been known that the gun used to kill Gaitán was sold two days before the crime, with not enough time to teach Roa Sierra to use a gun.  So, it has been theorized that the crime was planned for political reasons and to promote interests of foreign countries, but this has never been corroborated.  Publications have mentioned among others: the government of Mariano Ospina Pérez; sectors of the Liberal party; the Colombian Communist party; Fidel Castro; the CIA; and others that may have been involved in his murder.
caption: The corpse of Juan Roa was displayed by the mob in the Bolívar Square
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